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1. Alleged Spy Confesses: Iran Penetrates the Mossad
by Chana Ya'ar
Iran claims it has penetrated Israel's international espionage agency, the Mossad.
“After months of silent struggle, offensive, multi-layered and
complicated operations and penetration into the depths of the Zionist
regime's intelligence led to the uncovering of very important and
sensitive information about Mossad spies and operations,” the Iranian
Intelligence Ministry announced Monday in a statement.
“Heavy blows were inflicted on the structure of the Zionist intelligence and security services.”
Iranian state television broadcast the “confession” of one of several people arrested as Israeli spies.
The alleged Mossad operator said in his confession that he was flown to
the Jewish State by a Persian-speaking Israeli. He was taken to Mossad
headquarters, he said, claiming the campus was four kilometers long,
surrounded by barbed wire fences and located between Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem. The information was inaccurate. He also said he was taught
how to place bombs in cars.
The cell arrested by Iranian authorities was charged in connection with
last January's assassination of Tehran University physics professor
Masoud Ali Mohammadi outside his house. Mohammadi was killed when a
motorcycle rigged with explosives blew up as he was leaving for work.
2. Ateret Cohanim Official: EU Allying Itself With Hitler's Progeny
by David Lev
European observers who are considering coming to Jerusalem to
“supervise” the demolishing of the Shepherd Hotel in the Shimon
HaTzaddik-Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood would do well to think twice about
making the journey, says director of the Ateret Cohanim Foundation, Mati
Dan – otherwise they could find themselves facing some uncomfortable
facts about their past, not to mention the target of a vigorous effort
by Ateret Cohanim to have them deported for trying to incite riots.
“The only thing these people have to say to the Jews of Jerusalem is to
beg for our forgiveness for what they have done to us for thousands of
years, culminating in the Holocaust,” Dan tells Israel National News in
an interview. “Before anything else, they need to give an honest
accounting to themselves, to us, and to the world, and certainly not
involve themselves in telling Jews how and where to build in their
homeland.”
On Monday, as bulldozers began demolishing the old hotel, on a site
purchased by Dr. Irving Moskowitz of the U.S., the British Independent
newspaper published a confidential report that quoted 25 consul-generals
of European countries stationed in Jerusalem as calling for an
international observer force to “keep an eye” on Jewish actions in Arab
and mixed neighborhoods of Jerusalem.
The report, quoted by the paper, states that “Israel has left
Palestinian neighborhoods ever more isolated” and “is actively pursuing
its annexation by systematically undermining the Palestinian presence in
the city,” by using “legal and practical means.” The Consuls-General,
who are in essence EU ambassadors to the Palestinian Authority, called
for an official European presence in Jerusalem, “to ensure EU
intervention when Palestinians are arrested or intimidated by Israeli
authorities for peaceful cultural, social or political activities.”
But Dan does not intend to roll out the welcome mat for these observers
if they show up – quite the opposite. “They have no business here, and
we will do everything legally possible to prevent them from interfering
with Jewish building in our capital. How ironic it is,” he said, “that
the very people whose policies guaranteed the deaths of 6 million Jews
just a few decades ago, are now in a rush to defend against the home of
Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the great Arab ally of the Nazis.”
Husseini, who over nearly three decades inspired and organized pogroms,
riots, and murders of Jews, had drawn up with the Nazis plans for the
enslavement and elimination of the Jewish residents of the Land of
Israel when the Nazis invaded and conquered the country. “Husseini was
the owner of the hotel, which now legally belongs to Jewish owners, as
has been proven in court numerous times. In other words, the Europeans
would rather take the side of the modern-day persecutors of Jews, the
spiritual heirs of Husseini, instead of apologizing for what they have
done to us,” says Dan. “Such people have no place here.”
So far, the government has not responded to the latest attempt by the
EU to pressure Israel into halting building at the site, and Dan hopes
things will remain that way. If the EU does try to poke its nose into
Israel's building policy, Dan says he is ready for them. "We won't rest
until the government deports them, and sends them back to Europe, where
they belong."
%InAd1%
3. Interview: The Battered Wife Who Lives Next Door
by David Lev
Out of the many sad stories attorney Noach Korman can tell about Bat Melech,
the country's only shelter for battered women from the religious and
hareidi-religious communities, there is one about a woman who came to
the shelter a few months ago with her small children, seeking protection
from a violent and abusive husband.
The woman knew very well how to find Bat Melech; she had been there
before, a decade earlier, when her own mother escaped to the shelter to
get away from her abusive husband.
This is a dark side of Israel – indeed, a dark side of the Jewish
community – that few even realize is there. While perhaps not as severe
an issue as it is elsewhere, Israel's Orthodox and Hareidi
community too has abusive husbands and battered wives. And in the
close-knit Orthodox and Hareidi communities, it is often harder for a
woman to allow the community, especially her parents to whom she does
not want to cause suffering, know her situation. Once she had nowhere
to turn.
Today, when a woman decides that she has finally had enough and musters
the mental and physical wherewithal to escape her situation, Bat Melech
is ready for her, placing her and their children in temporary,
comfortable quarters, finding suitable schools for her religious
affiliation, while the organization's professional staff of
psychologists, social workers, and attorneys help them prepare for a
future free of violence..
“We started Bat Melech in 1996, when I was a young attorney
representing a Hassidic woman who had run away from home with her small
child,” organization director Korman says. “She slept in hotel lobbies
in Jerusalem at night, and by day roamed indoor department stores and
malls to keep warm. She literally had no place to go; her husband would
beat her, and there were no hostels or shelters where she, as a
religious woman, could go.” Although shelters are usually kosher, to
religious women the atmosphere is paramount; they do not want their
children in a non observant environment where they are exposed to
television on Shabbat, a fact which would also jeopardize their chances
for custody in divorce proceedings.
Based on this and other cases that crossed his desk, Korman realized
that an important community need was not being addressed. Together with
several other people, including Mrs. Estanne Fawer-Abrams,
Korman founded Bat Melech.
Bat Melech started with a small apartment in Jerusalem, which had room
for just a few women. After several years, the Welfare Ministry threw
its support behind the organization, and today it has several apartments
in Jerusalem and the center of the country where women and their
children can stay. Bat Melech also operates a hotline, which, Korman
says, gets about 1,600 calls a year from women seeking help. Most of the
cases are resolved with the legal services the organization provides,
but in extreme cases, Bat Melech staff will remove a woman from her
threatening environment and house her in one of the shelter apartments.
The organization also runs educational programs in communities,
teaching husbands and wives how to cope with marital difficulties and
resolve them without violence.
Although designed to help battered wives, many of Bat Melech's
resources actually go towards helping the children of violent marriages
resolve their feelings. “Studies show that 80% of men and 60% of women
who grow up in homes where they witness domestic violence will
themselves be either abusers or victims. Among our most important
activities is intervening to provide positive experiences for children
of these marriages, to break the chain of abuse and victimization that
repeats itself over generations.”
The importance of that intervention was highlighted a few weeks ago,
when a woman who was a former client of Bat Melech and had divorced her
first abusive husband was killed – by her second, abusive husband. “This
woman, whom we knew, had grown up in an abusive household, and her
mentality, like many others in these circumstances, had been skewed to
lead her to accept abusive behavior as normal,” Korman says. “We were
able to help her with her first marriage because she reached out to us,
but we hadn't heard from her after her second marriage – until last
month, when she was killed.”
The incident just reinforces Korman's efforts to impact the situation
as much as he can. Of course, an effort like stemming domestic violence,
especially in insular Hareidi and religious communities, will go
nowhere unless the rabbis and leaders of the community are fully
committed to the cause – and, says Korman, they are. “Some people are
surprised to hear it, but I have yet to find one rabbi or community
leader that has tried to discourage women from seeking out our service,”
Korman says. The rabbis usually are intimately involved in the
incidents anyway, as feuding couples seek their help. “They often
contact us themselves,” Korman adds.
Has any irate husband ever demanded his wife back from the shelter?
“Not once,” says Korman. “These fellows are bullies – acting tough and
beating their wives at home, but outside the home, in the real world,
they're much tamer,” Korman says. “Without their wives to push around,
they become much more compliant.” It's that change that helps end the
marriages so that many of the women who come to Bat Melech – as many as
70%, says Korman - to move on to productive lives after their marriages
are over.
Korman invites all those who need help – or those who wish to lend support – to call the Bat Melech hotline, at 1-800-292333.
Note: While the public generally perceives domestic violence as an
exclusively male-against-female crime, it should be noted that top
researchers in the field disagree wholeheartedly. Professor Murray A.
Straus of the University of New Hampshire, considered by many to be the
world's leading researcher on intimate partner violence, wrote in the
abstract introducing one of his numerous studies:
These results, in combination with results from many other studies,
call into question the assumption that partner violence is primarily a
male crime and that, when women are violent, it is self-defense. Because
these assumption are crucial elements in almost all partner violence
prevention and treatment programs, a fundamental revision is needed to
bring these programs into alignment with the empirical data.
4. Netanyahu Defends Likud 'Feinshmekers'
by Gil Ronen
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke to Foreign Minister Avigdor
Liberman on the phone Monday and reportedly protested over Lieberman's
accusations of ideological weakness in the Likud. Liberman used the
Yiddish word 'feinshmeker' - which describes a snobbish, picky type of
person - with regard to Likud members who voted against the
establishment of a committee of inquiry into the funding of
ultra-leftist groups.
According to a version of the conversation that reached reporters,
Netanyahu told Liberman that Likud "is not a dictatorship of one
opinion." This statement is seen as an allusion to Lieberman's party,
Israel is Our Home, which - so Netanyahu hints - has less tolerance for
dissenting opinions.
Netanyahu told Liberman that it is important to maintain a variety of opinions, according to one report.
The Foreign Minister said Monday that it was "strange" to see members
of the nationalist camp voting alongside Arab MKs against the committee
of inquiry. "The Right has never truly succeeded in governing [according
to] its world view... because of these 'rhinoceroses' who are always
busy proving how just they are."
"Rhinoceros" is a literary allusion to a play by the same name, written
by Eugène Ionesco in 1959, about conformists who lose their moral
compasses.
%InAd2%
5. Links Between B'Tselem, Terror Funds Reported
by Gil Ronen
Israeli leftist groups receive money from Arab pro-terror
organizations, an independent investigation by grassroots student group
Im Tirtzu revealed. The findings were reported by Ma'ariv Tuesday.
Im Tirtzu's study connects the dots between 13 Israeli leftist groups -
including B'Tselem and the Center for Protection of the Individual
('Hamoked') - and a Ramallah-based fund called the National Development
Center (NDC), which is closely linked to a fund called the Welfare
Association (WA). The WA, in turn, receives some of its money from the
Al Aqsa Fund, which also gives money to the relatives of mass murdering
'martyrs' who carried out suicide attacks against Jewish men, women and
children.
Im Tirtzu says that by receiving money from these sources, the Israeli
groups are legally obliged to fight Israel through propaganda and
'lawfare.'
The NDC gave a total of about two million dollars to 13 Israeli groups
in 2008-2009 alone, the new research reveals. The largest donations were
to Hamoked, which received $450,000, and B'Tselem, which got $400,000.
B'Tselem logo, bus bomb aftermath (photomontage) / Photos from Flash 90, Wikimedia Commons
The NDC, founded 2006, is officially funded by the governments of
Switzerland, Sweden, Holland and Denmark. However, its website also says
that its assets, systems and team of founders came from the WA. Im
Tirtzu says that according to the group's official criteria for granting
assistance, any aid recipient must commit itself to "activity for
monitoring human rights abuses by the 'Israeli Occupation Force'," and
for conducting a propaganda and legal struggle against the 'occupation'
of Judea and Samaria.
NDC's headquarters are based in Ramallah, and its directors are all
from the Palestinian Authority. Five of the 13 board members are also
representatives and members of the WA in Ramallah, which receives money
from the Islamic Investment Bank, Arab countries hostile to Israel and
the Al Aqsa Fund. The Al Aqsa Fund, which gives money to family members
of suicide bomb mass-murderers, gave the WA $797,000 in 2007 alone.
B'Tselem: tell the police
B'Tselem responded to the Ma'ariv report by saying that the NDC "is a
body for transferring money established by the governments of
Switzerland, Sweden, Holland and Denmark, and gives money to B'Tselem,
among other groups. The body's operation is completely legal and
B'Tselem reports, as the law requires, all monies transferred to it from
these governments through this body. If the people of Im Tirtzu have
any complaints, they are welcome to ask the Israel Police and the
Registrar of Amutot (NGOs) to investigate."
Hamoked said: "Four European nations that are friendly toward Israel
chose to give money to Hamoked through a pipeline known as NDC. Any
other presentation of these simple facts is an underhanded attempt to
depict the group in a bad light."
6. Reports: Nof Tzion 'Saved from Arab Buy-Up'
by Gil Ronen
Nof Tzion, the new Jerusalem neighborhood that was almost bought up by
an Arab businessman, will remain in Jewish hands, latest reports
indicate.
In a late-night post on its Facebook site, activist group "my Israel" (Israel Online Ambassadors)
informed its members that "it seems at the moment that [the purchase]
has indeed been blocked," and "numerous forces" are acting to complete a
deal that would transfer ownership of the neighborhood to Jewish hands.
Another report that appears to confirm that Nof Tzion is safe from a
hostile buy-up appears on the Maariv-NRG website. Under the headline
"Racism in Business, Too," a column by financial editor Yehudah Sharoni
bemoans the collapse of the Arab attempt to purchase the neighborhood.
Sharoni tells his readers that Digal, the developer of Nof Tzion, is in
financial difficulties and was about to be sold to "Palestinian"
businessman Bashar Al-Masri, until "an attack by settlers" on Digal's
creditor - Bank Leumi - torpedoed the deal.
Sources close to attorney Dov Weisglass, who represents Al-Masri, told
Sharoni that the bank has "caved in to settler pressure and that
therefore Digal will not be sold to the Palestinian investor after all."
Sharoni explains that 100 of the neighborhood's 300 planned homes have
been bought by religious Jewish families and that the investors fear the
Arab buyer would sell the rest of the neighborhood to Arabs. "Sources
close to Masri denied that they intend to harm the Jewish apartment
buyers and stressed that he intends to create a partition between the
tenants," he writes.
This last line appears to be an indirect confirmation that the Jewish
concerns were justified, and that Al-Masri planned to sell the rest of
the neighborhood to Arabs, and then (perhaps) build an "apartheid wall"
between the Jews and Arabs.
An attorney representing opponents of the Al-Masri deal demanded
Tuesday that Bank Leumi refuse to accept the check written by Al-Masri
because it violates the law against money laundering.
Attorney Mordechai Mintzer informed the Authority against Money
Laundering and Terror Financing that checks from PA banks are not
acceptable in Israel because of the PA's refusal to define certain
groups as terror organizations.
%InAd3%
7. Gaza Fires Rocket at Israel, None Hurt
by Gil Ronen
Terrorists fired a short range 'Kassam'-type rocket at Israel Tuesday
morning. The rocket exploded in Hof Ashkelon county, north of Gaza. No
one was hurt and no damage was reported.
Gaza terrorists fired four rockets at Israel Monday, causing no casualties or damage.
London-based pan-Arab newspaper A-Sharq Al-Awsat reported that Hamas is
having difficulty persuading other groups in Gaza to stop firing
rockets at Israel and that its terrorist militia has deployed along the
border with Israel to try and increase its degree of control there.
"Palestinian" Arab sources told the newspaper that Hamas officials met
with representatives of other organizations, but that these groups
refused to commit to a "calm" vis-a-vis Israel or to refrain from
responding to Israeli actions. They reportedly did agree not to initiate
an escalation.
Reports from Gaza are tightly controlled by Hamas and should be seen as
part of the group's sophisticated psychological warfare against
Israel.
Hamas also reported that Israel rearrested a PA Member of Parliament
for Hamas, Omar Abdel Razek. He was reportedly arrested at his home in
Samaria. Abdel Razek was arrested in 2006, then released, then rearrested (all in the same year), then released again in 2008.
8. Analysis: Portugal the Next Financial Domino
by Amiel Ungar
Once upon a time there were five European PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland,
Italy, Greece and Spain) who were considered to be living in a financial
structure made out of straw or wood. Along came the big bad credit
markets that threatened to collapse that threatened financial structure
by making debt refinancing too prohibitive. The more responsible members
of the European Union and the international monetary fund have already
bailed out Ireland and Greece and in return for the financial bricks
both countries have had to adopt severe austerity programs.
Now the big bad credit markets threaten to blow down Portugal. The
Portuguese government has denied that it requires international help,
but the big credit bad credit markets have replied that we heard that
story from Greece and Ireland before and everyone knows what happens.
The interest rate on Portuguese bonds has soared to 7% and a Reuters
poll of 51 economists found that 43 believe that Portugal will require a
bailout. Such polls can turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy by
increasing the doubts about the Portuguese economy's ability to stay
afloat.
If the Portuguese domino falls, it can be placed upright for about €100
billion, something that is in the realm of the possible. Other EU
members, such as France and Germany, as well as Finland and Austria,
have pleaded with Portugal to bow to the inevitable and accept the
bailout and told her that all the pieces are in place. They believe that
a show of determination in tackling the problem is far better than a
condition of continuing uncertainty.
There is also the possibility that by cajoling Portugal into accepting a
bailout this might deflect concern away from the much more serious
Spanish domino. Spain, already hard-hit by the collapse of the property
boom, is also severely exposed by investments in neighboring Portugal.
The Spanish economy is twice as large as Portugal, Greece and Ireland
combined. To keep Spain upright may require more money than the EU is
capable of or collectively willing to come up with.
Spain has taken steps to cut down government expenses and reform its
pension system and has accumulated greater trust in the financial
community but it may not prove enough. In the meantime, Spain is being
very careful to avoid giving the impression that it would welcome a
bailout of Portugal. Spanish Finance MinisterElena Salgado expressed her
confidence that "Portugal will not need a bailout." When Portugal
approaches the credit markets on Wednesday, that confidence will be put
to a severe test.
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